This invention relates to a silo or box for storage or transportation of empty plastic bottles.
As is known, in plastic bottle filling processes, plastic bottles are blow molded from preforms or parisons.
After molding, the bottles may be conveyed either directly to the filling lines or to storage silos, wherefrom they are withdrawn to be transferred to the filling lines with the help of unscramblers, which receive bulk bottles and arrange them in rows.
In many cases, bottles are manufactured in factories that are specialized in the manufacture of plastic items and then shipped in shipping boxes of vehicles, in bulk storage arrangement, to the bottle filling factories.
The storage silos or boxes are made up of parallelepipeds of square or rectangular cross section, which are open at their tops and closed at their bottom by movable walls for bottle discharge.
Both in storage silos and in bottle shipping boxes, strips or ribbons are hooked to the side walls in such arrangement as to form a plurality of parallel plane grids.
In prior art, these strips or ribbons are placed over a plane surface.
Prior art drawbacks are associated to the plane arrangement of strips, which form bridges, whereby bottles do not fall during unloading of the box or silo after removal of the bottom wall.
The object of this invention is to obviate the above drawbacks and particularly facilitate bottle fall after removal of the bottom wall.
The advantages achieved by using the box or silo of the present invention consist in that it prevents the formation of bridges which hinder the fall of bottles, as well as bottle crushing during transportation or storage.
These objects and advantages are achieved by a silo or box for storage or transportation of empty plastic bottles of this invention, which is characterized by the annexed claims.
Characteristics and advantages will be more apparent from the following description of a few embodiments, which are shown by way of example and without limitation in the accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring to
The silo 1 thus obtained is peripherally closed by plastic walls or sheets for retaining empty bottles.
As further shown in
Alternatively, the lower portion may be only closed by a sliding panel, to be inserted in corresponding guides, attached to the posts 1a.
Still from
The profiles 1b form a given number of layers or planes, which number depends on the size of the silo 1; referring to
By repeating the above process at all planes, a plurality of grids is finally provided, lying on parallel horizontal planes, which have the function of preventing any excessive pressure from being exerted on the lower layers of any column of bottles, thence any bottle crushing.
As further shown by
The number of strips 3 may also change depending on the size of empty bottles.
Referring to
In other words, each strip 3 is placed with its bottom side (the longer side being stretched between the two profiles 1B) inclined with respect to the horizontal plane of the longitudinal Laxis of the strip 3.
Preferably, the inclination angle a of the strips 3 is of 20 to 35°.
Still from
The other example (
The silo 1 so formed can support a part of the weight of the columns of empty bottles on the strips 3 and allows complete unloading of the silo 1 itself when the bottom sliding panel is opened.
As mentioned above, the lower portion of the silo 1 may consist of a troncopyramidal discharge hopper (see
The above strip attachment arrangement between the profiles 1b may be susceptible of changes, without departure from the scope of the invention, as claimed below.
Reference was made in the example to a silo 1 having profiles 1b , because this reduces the weight of the silo 1; however, if four solid walls are used instead of the profiles 1b , the strips 3 will be secured and stretched between opposite walls and still inclined as described above.
Once again, the attachment thereof may be achieved using techniques known to those skilled in the art.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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PR2004A000078 | Nov 2004 | IT | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP05/11871 | 11/7/2005 | WO | 5/7/2007 |